The present invention relates to delivery of medical devices to an operative site within the body and to systems and methods for the same.
It is often necessary to place medical devices within the body. For example, certain mechanical circulatory support devices (“MCSDs”) use inlet cannulas to deliver blood from a chamber of the heart of a patient to a pump implanted within the body at a location remote from the heart. The pump pressurizes the blood and delivers it to an artery, thus assisting the pumping function of the heart. During installation of such an MCSD, the inlet cannula must be placed so that an end of the cannula projects through the wall of the appropriate heart chamber.
It is desirable to perform this procedure with only a minimum of surgical disruption to the patient's anatomy. For example, it would be desirable to install such a cannula through a limited thoracotomy. Although such a cannula can be installed by coring a hole in the wall of the heart chamber approximately the diameter of the cannula and then threading the cannula into the chamber through the cored hole, such a procedure requires measures to avoid life-threatening blood loss through the hole in the heart wall during installation. Thus, further improvement would be desirable.